Lignum Vitae

What wood is this?Olive or oak, cedar or pine?Unsuited for the cabinet makers art.Unfit for turning, inlay, elegance,too warped for any honest use,door frame or ladder or carriers cart.What wood is this?Sold cheap to minimise the growers loss.Too many knots, too twisted, no good except for firewood or a cross.What wood is this?Rough joints, rope lashingshold it together for the task aheadand the carpenters handsthat might have shaped itas they shaped the worldare made to drag it through the streets instead.What wood is this?It is the wood of death,the wood of life.

Bernard Fyles, a graduate of Cambridge University, worked for 35 years as a teacher and headmaster in English Catholic schools.